-'-<'^^ - 



.'^•m-'^'^^^'' 



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SxnoK 



THE ORACLE ON 
SMOKE 



BEING A FEW UTTERANCES IN A SIM- 
PLE AND NOT AT ALL DELPHIC 
STYLE, WITH CERTAIN SO- 
CALLED POEMS THERE 
AMONG SCATTERED 



ALL REPORTED AND WRIT BY 
BERTON BRALET 



Madison, Wisconsin 
1905 






A 



' LiUl^XsVY of JONGH Pr}3 
fwo O'eoies rJeceivcu 

JUN b 1^05 

i/..i--.SS <*^ ^■;<:- '^Oi 



Copyright 1905 

BY 

Berton Braley 



Published by The Sphinx 
Printed by the Parsons Printery 



?::j 



TO 

MY MOTHER, 

WHOSE CURTAINS I HAVE SCENTED, 

AND WHOSE 

PATIENCE I HAVE TRIED 

FOR 

MANY YEARS 

WITH 

MUCH SMOKE; 

THIS BOOK 

IS 

JOYFULLY DEDICATED. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



AT THE THRESHOLD 

Two of the Oracle's Talks (* On the Pipe ' and 'Sans 
Nicotine ' ) as well as some of the verse, have appeared 
in the Sphinx at divers times. The other matter herein 
appearing has never before stood in type. 

In all of it there is no purpose save to amuse the smoker 
and give a genial word for man's devotion to the weed, 
** which combines the venom of the serpent with the com- 
passion of the prophet." 

And that no one may unjustly accuse me of" borrowed 
ideas,'* I protest now that I have never read "My Lady 
Nicotine." 

B. B. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



THE ORACLE ON CIGARS 

" Undoubtedly/' said the Oracle, after he had passed 
us all the cigar box, and was settled back in his ragged 
Morris chair, ** undoubtedly I am fully qualified to dis- 
sertate on the cigar in the most appreciative style, for I 
so rarely am fortunate enough to have a fat brown weed 
that my appreciation is enhanced by long abstinence, and 
therefore, perhaps without warrant, I am prone to consider 
the cigar as essentially a festive luxury, something that 
goes with five course dinners and a feeling of contented 
repletion. 

" On such an occasion a fellow lolls lazily back in his 
chair with his legs clear under the table, unbuttons his vest 
and gazes on life through an aromatic, bluish haze which 
throws a glamor over all things. The world's all right, 
life' s worth living, success looms large through the smoke, 
and the earth is but a plump cigar which you hold be- 
tween strong fingers and fi-om which you draw content- 
ment and plethoric dreams. You never noticed before 
how kindly and genial are all the men in the room. That 
man Brown whom you've always felt to be an ass is really 
not half bad, and that story he's telling has a new glint 



6 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

of humor in it, a gleam of fun which you never noticed 
on the ten previous occasions when Brown told it. And 
Perkins, dissipated and profane Perkins, whom you've 
always detested, why now that you study him through 
the smoke, seems quite a different fellow; you feel cer- 
tain that half the tales about him are mere venom from 
his enemies, and you experience a certain slothflil indigna- 
tion that so fine looking a man should be thus maligned. 

** Wrapped in the cloud of Nicotinian fragrance as you 
are, you acquire for the time a certain easy tolerance and 
kindly sympathy which make you kin with all mankind. 

**I have seen sworn enemies, rivals in business and 
love, society and politics, men who can say nothing bitter 
or acrid enough about each other ordinarily, — I have seen 
such men, when thrown together by chance in the same 
smoke-filled room, melt from sullen silence to plastic com- 
posure, and so finally to smiling conversation with the 
very men they so long have tried to incinerate in the fur- 
nace of their hatred. 

Probably the next day will see them the same fleering 
foes as usual, but that they for even a little space fore- 
gathered in concord must be written fair for the magic of 
the cigar. Sharp lines blur in smoke, sharp prejudices and 
animosities soften. 

** Therefore, to gain the full benefit of a good cigar, one 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 7 

should have eaten well and be among his kind. Thus at 
least it runs with me; I glean no dreams of future or past 
from a cigar; I build no castles in its smoke, but I be- 
come instilled with a sense of loafing tenderness and warm 
comradeship, with a glow of love and — but I am only 
repeating myself. Not for long will this box of brown 
beauties endure, and when they have taken to themselves 
wings of blue smoke and fled into the circumambient ozone, 
the gods alone are 'ware of when I shall have another 
box. Which means in simple United States, that * Lord 
knows when I shall get another.* 

* ' Let us therefore enjoy the Gift of Fate to the utter- 
most and waste no more smoke-scented moments in bab- 
ble. There still remain a few cigars and I would have 
you each take another. Here, fellows. '* 

And the crowd continued, as the Oracle became, — 
silent. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



WHEN THE SMOKE'S A' CURLIN 
ROUND 




WHEN the ** shades of night have fallen," an' 
the window shades have too. 
When the radiator's hissin' as the steam goes 

chuggin' through. 
An* its comfy to be sprawln' in yer ragged 

easy chair. 
Just to lie at ease and listen to the sounds 

about yuh there. 
When ye' re sort' a kind' a drowsy and yuh 
ain't a carin' much, 
'Cept to lazy there a dreamin' dreams of happiness an' 

such; 
Then a feller sort' a lows he likes to be a "lazy hound," 
An' to watch his pipe bowl gleamin' while the «moke's a' 
curlin' round. 

An' yuh lie there just a thinkin' thoughts as hazy as the 

smoke. 
Of the things yuh'd be a' doin* if yuh weren't so rotten 

broke. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 9 

An' yer eyes is busy blinkin* at yer *< Castles built in 
Spain," 

Though they tumble down in ruin yuh can always build 
again; 

Then yuh get to kind a' rakin' up the things of long ago. 

Things yuh thought yuh had forgotten, till yuh see them 
come an' glow 

In the bluish mist ye' re makin' — there's philosophy pro- 
found. 

In yer memories an' plottin' when the smoke's a' curlin' 
round. 

So outside yuh let men bicker, buy and sell, an' rise er fall. 
While within yuh watch the changes in the smoke cloud 

over all. 
Watch the visions shift and flicker, see the faces form and 

fade. 
As yer foolish fancy ranges in the dreamland yuh have made. 
Where is trouble, pain or sorrow? Here is nothing only 

peace; 
For the hosts of care must falter an' the little worries cease; 
They may deafen yuh to-morrow but to-night they make 

no sound. 
Silenced at tobacco's alter, while the smoke's a' curlin' 

round. 



lO 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



A PIPE TALK 




*' A pipe," said the Oracle, as he filled his from a jar 
on the table and borrowed a match from MacPherson; 
**a pipe is the only proper smoke. To me, the essence 
of smoking is its comradeship, and comradeship requires in- 
dividuality. Now there's individuality to a pipe, there is 
none to a cigar or a cigarette. A pipe gets to be an old 
friend, it has a personality, a history, and v^hen you smoke 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE ii 

it you feel as though you were talking over old times 
with a tried and staunch old comrade. How much you 
two have gone through together, you and that scorched 
briar. Remember that time when you were in the log- 
ging camp, that's when that little nick in the stem got 
there; then the jagged scratch on the bowl came when 
you were so nearly killed in that runaway. You look into 
the bowl and notice for the five hundredth time the place 
where you pried off a bit of the * cake ' to show Her how 
much the pipe had been smoked, and you smile reminis- 
cently as you remember how She held up Her finger at 
you and said, < You naughty boy, Pm afraid you smoke 
terribly.* 

** And you count the little dents in the pipe, which 
appeared that day you threw it out of the window and 
vowed you would quit for good, while you grin gleefully, 
recalling how you chased out the next morning and hunted 
for two hours until you finally found your strong old com- 
rade and danced with joy at your success, and swore you'd 
never quit again until you died. 

<* But memoried joys are' not the only ones found in a 
pipe. It gets to be almost a part of you as well as of 
your history. How the stem settles itself comfortably in 
its own space between your teeth, how the bowl grows 
warm and shining in your supporting hand, and if it is a 



12 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

* bulldog ' how it nestles against your chin, as if it be- 
longed there — as it does. 

'* A pipe has moods, too — it is almost human in them. 
Don't you know how it sometimes gets unaccountably 
rank and bitter, and how, though you clean it and pet it 
and pamper it with the mildest and sweetest of tobacco, it 
still remains stubbornly ill-tempered? 

**Then you lay it aside a bit, and behold it stops sulk- 
ing and becomes cheery and pleasant again. And some- 
times it takes on a glorious good humor which even the 
worst tobacco cannot disturb, and then smoking it is verily 

* the crown of pleasure,' for it soothes and caresses, and 
warms the cockles of your heart with its rich and glowing 
sweetness. 

'* I have seen the world somewhat, my children'* and 
the Oracle smiled benignly upon us, **I have tasted life 
and its joys, I have known the fierce pleasure of combat 
and the intoxicating glory of success, but at the last I find, 
to quote my own famous verses: 

I sought my heaven in books, and found but dust; 
I sought for it in fame, and found but power; 
I followed fortune and received a crust; 
Love's gift to me was but a withered flower. 
And then, my wisdom with the years grown ripe, 
I sought my heaven and found it — in a pipe.'" 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 13 



THE ORACLE SANS NICOTINE 

"Dances,*' said the Oracle, reaching mechanically for 
his pipe and then settling back into his chair as he remem- 
bered that he had sworn off, '* are a convenient method 
of going broke; they are — '* 

**You said that last night, Oracle,'' interrupted the 
Engineer, ** for heavens sake give us something new; it's 
bad enough to hsten to your futile burblings anyhow, and 
when you begin to repeat — " 

" Well what if I do," said the Oracle, irritably, and 
the gang looked startled, for the Oracle was wont to be 
serenely oblivious to criticism, '*it's worth repeating, 
which can't be said of the puerile twaddle you usually 
manufacture as conversation. Now you choke off or I'll 
hand you a good stiff one in the laths; — Dances are a 
convenient method — hang it, Peters, quit twiddling your 
thumbs! you'd drive a camel to drink! Bangs, can't you 
leave your watch chain alone? You fellows get on my 
nerves with your eternal fidgets!" 

It was plain that the Oracle felt nervous and we won- 
dered. 

"Oracle," ventured the Engineer, tentatively, "why 



14 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

is this whichness? Whither has fled thine old time in- 
souciance? Wherefore — " 

'* Oh head in on that archaic rot and — damn it; Pet- 
ers, if you can't keep your foot still for at least one second, 
cut it off! You all act like a lot of uneasy angle worms! 
Where was I at? Oh yes, dances are a con — '* 

* Fidence game on the unwary bachelor,' — say that 
for the sake of variety, Oracle, the other is somewhat 
hackneyed and — " 

** Say, I wish you fellows would reserve your face- 
tiousness for the eager ears of your super-educated friends. 
I for one find my rude and undeveloped intellect unequal 
to the strain of following your subtleties. — Ticks, why 
the deuce don't you clean that pipe in your own room? 
Do you think I can sit here and watch that nauseating — 
Say Bangs, imagine you have the tetanus for ten seconds, 
and desist from that mastication of tooth -picks; you've got 
more senseless, foolish, childish, infantile, idiotic man- 
nerisms than any one I ever had the misfortune to know! 
Ugh! 

** Well, to continue — dances are useful and democratic 
institutions; that as a general statement, requires elucida- 
tion, and my arguments based upon this postulate unfold 
much as follows — " 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 15 

The Oracle paused, malignantly gazed at the Engineer 
who was drawing tit-tat-toe marks on a calling card, and 
then reached for his pipe, filled it, lit a match, but remem- 
bering his vow, laid the companion of his heart aside, and 
wearily sank back in his chair. 

'*Fellows,'* said the Oracle, ** smoke up! I may have 
quit, but I want to catch the old homely whifF of Durham 
again, for I have been marooned on the altar of self-sac- 
rifice overlong. I guess maybe that's why everything 
makes me jump like a hair-spring charged with electricity/' 

The scent of burning tobacco from three pipes and two 
cigarettes floated across the room to the immolated Oracle, 
and his eyes closed in beatific peace. Then he reached 
guiltily for his pipe and put it in his mouth. *< Just a dry 
smoke, boys," he said in an unconvinced sort of tone, and 
the gang winked portentously, ** Let's see, where was 1} 
oh yes; arguments unfold as follows — " 

There was the rasp of a match and Bangs held the 
blazing bit of pine just above the Oracle's pipe; the Oracle 
shook his head, but his eyes hungrily watched the flame 
eat along until only an inch of the match was left, and 
then his left eyelid slowly slid down over that eager orb 
and he drew deeply and joyously on the battered mouth- 
piece of the pipe as Bangs dropped the still burning match 



1 6 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

on the charred bowl. The Oracle blew a cloud of smoke 
at the pipe rack just above his chair. 

** Smoking,'* said the Oracle, with a luxurious sigh, 
" is the habit of Philosophers." 

"But go on with your dissertation upon Dances" said 
the Engineer, graciously. 

** Dances" quoth the Oracle, *<are to be danced, not 
philosophised upon." 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



17 



WHIFFS FROM THE ORACLE'S 
CIGARETTE 







** As a man of the world,'* said the Oracle, rolling his 
ninth after-supper cigarette, ** I am aware that a prejudice 
against these dainty tubes exists, but as a scientist and a 



1 8 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

cigarette smoker I believe it my duty to defend the much- 
attacked *cofSn-nails.' 

*< And in doing this I shall disregard all the puerile ac- 
cusations so often burbled forth, and expatiate only on the 
/ virtues of the * dude stick,* as crack-brained adversaries 
vapidly term it. There come times in every man's life 
vv^hen a short smoke is a thing most avidly to be desired, yet 
when a pipe w^ould be a reeking offense and a cigar a 
riotous extravagance; what then? shall the hankering mortal 
still hank or shall he take the * making's' or his case from 
his pocket and inhale a few heaven-savoring whiffs? Surely 
the latter, for thus shall he save himself from the nervous 
grouchiness of self denial, or the folly of a cigar four-fifths 
wasted. 

*< Then for the man who rolls his own smokes there is 
a certain pride of workmanship in creating them when he 
is alone, and a certain time filling pause in constructing 
them when he is in the throes of * frissing,' which com- 
pensate for many ills whose parentage is laid to these * boy 
killers.' 

*< And when She, with dainty but unskilled hands, 
strives to roll a real cigarette for you, what a smile of ab- 
sorbed anticipation and condescension overspreads your 
face, and ho ambrosial to the taste and aromatic to the 
nostrils is the limp and amatuerish product of Her en- 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 19 

deavor. Then you begin to roll another with consciously 
unconscious ease and you swell up mightily when She says, 
* Oh how cleverly you do things ! why it looks just awfully 
easy, but I can't seem to make them at all.' 

*' Of course you proceed at once to tell Her, < it's just 
a matter of practice, you see I smoke so much that I 
can't afford to buy made cigarettes, in fact I believe I 
smoke too much,' proving this assertion by a display of 
much yellowed fingers at which she inveighs n half awed 
disapproval* 

** But after all, with me at least, it is in the 
quiet of my room, when my brain is fagged and my pipe 
gone foul, that I love the cigarette best. There is such 
loUing content in merely watching the thin band of smoke 
which streams up from the burning end, and such lazy 
acuteness in noting how the thread like smoke from the 
paper curls itself into intricate filigree work as it gets away 
from its source, and how the blue from the tobacco breaks 
from a ribbon into a formless hazy cloud and then melts 
into nothingness. 

"The dreams and reveries that come to me with a 
cigarette are those only of past delights and folhes, of 
dances and flirtations, of whispered nothings and easily 
won and hghtly given kisses, of frivolous and fickle maids 



20 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

whose eyes have sparkled for me, and of all the airy frip- 
peries that have sprightlified existence. 

*< With a pipe I will dream of comradeship and work 
and sorrow, of pain borne patiently and joy won through 
toil and struggle, — a cigarette brings back only the dreams 
that are trivial, though smile-sufFused. 

**But the final canonization of the cigarette, the most abso- 
lute fitness in its use, is when it gleams in a woman's 
hand or between her lips. 

** No Puritan I. Let the woman be piquant, pert and 
pretty, let her be gowned in taking wise, and let her 
smoke only the best Egyptians with her monogram in gold 
thereon, and I will fall down and worship. If it please 
her Majesty to blow fragrant rings and aureolize her beauty 
in a mist of smoke, I will respect her none the less, and if 
she wafts graceful exhalations fi-om temptingly pursed up 
hps and with a languorous deftness I will proclaim her the 
apotheosis of the smoker. 

**As my friend Horatio Winslow says, a little too 
rakishly perhaps, 

* She hates conventionality. 

She' s different from the rest. 

She scorns a mere formahty. 
She likes a piquant jest. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



21 




She knows a thing 

or two or more. 
You needn't say it 

twice. 
Perhaps you've met 

that sort before — 
She's naughty, but 

but she's nice! 

" 'Her feelings are 
devotional 

Toward Turkish 
cigarettes, 
y Impulsive and emo- 
tional. 

She loves and 
smokes and bets, 



She's played most every sort of game 
She doesn't take advice. 

And people say — but just the same. 
She's naughty, but she's nice! 



22 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

* ** There isn*t much satiety 

When you're around with her. 
She's brimming with variety. 

She's different as it were; 
And here's to her, the patron saint 

Of cigarettes and dice. 
She's not demure nor shy nor quaint. 

She's naughty — but she's nice.' " 

The Oracle looked at the row of "butts" on the ash 
tray before him, sighed dubiously, then turned to the En- 
gineer, — 

« " A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure, 
it is exquisite and it leaves you unsatisfied,' lend me the 
materials, will you, McPherson? " 

LofC. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



23 



An <f^ j^e AC t /"fi /^ e Wo rfj '/ -f «jn^ 



An J T w4 /c~X //■ Aujf'/c ^y 



24 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



MY OLD COB PIPE 



You may talk about your cigarettes and fifty cent cigars. 
Your water pipes and briars, and your meerchaums and the 

rest. 
With your extra blend tobacco and your silver mounted 

jars. 
But just and old-time corn cob pipe is what I love the best. 
With some double charged tobacco that is strong and old 

and ripe. 
And I'll get a whiff of heaven from my old cob pipe. 



When the winter winds are shrieking and the snow drift 

blocks the door, 
I take my old companion, and we settle by the fire. 
And I tell my pipe my troubles, till they trouble me no 

more. 
For he speaks a silent language and his sayings never tire. 
He's a comforter and helper of a rare and valued type. 
And the world has seemed the sweeter for my old cob pipe. 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 25 

Oh he loves the books I care for, and I sometimes think 

he knows 
How my Kipling stirs the spirit, how my Dobson warms 

the heart. 
And the faithfiil spark within him like a distant camp fire 

glows. 
When the masters swinging rhythm sings of field and town 

and mart. 
Yes my pipe and I are comrades of a most congenial stripe 
So I love and loaf and labor with my old cob pipe. 

But most and best I love him when amidst his smoke I see 
The vision of the maiden who is soon to be my wife. 
Yet a little pang of sadness even then comes over me 
Despite the gladsome promise of a happiness for life 
And furtively from off my cheek a trickling tear I wipe. 
For I've promised her to quit you now — my old cob pipe. 



26 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 



THE ORACLE ON MOODS 

The room was in the usual smoke-house condition, with 
incense ascending from a collection of Durham-fed or 
Arcadia-filled pipes, from '* home and tailor-made cigar- 
ettes,'* and from one lone cigar which pertained to the 
plutocrat of the crowd. 

The Oracle surveyed the gang with satisfaction, 

<* Rather an intelligent audience I have tonight,'* he 
beamed, **not quite worthy to hear my utterances, of 
course, but fairly appreciative and not entirely obtuse; I 
am well pleased. 

*' My mood is most pleasurable tonight anyhow, and I 
am easily pleased, my gregarious instincts are dominant 
and it does me good to look upon the faces of both friend 
and foe, they all look good to me, — chuck the pained ex- 
pression, well I ken that I have no foes in this bunch, 
you're all tolerant comrades whom I love much, — and 
this general feeling of good will which permeates me is 
mostly the result of my Lady Nicotine's gracious mood. 
She has today blessed my lot with flawless smokes; my 
pipes have been sweet and mellow, burning evenly with a 
gentle warmth and giving forth smoke which savors of the 



THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 27 

sunny south whence the tobacco has come. My cigar- 
ettes have almost rolled themselves, not a paper has broken, 
not a whiff but has been goodly. The two cigars which 
generous friends have this day given me were fat and 
richly satisfying, and during all the hours no match has 
failed in its incendiary duty. I have been gorgeously happy 
and without care. 

** Such moods come but seldom, the gods dare not 
make them more frequent lest many such plenteous hours 
change us all to indolent though contented dawdlers. 
Therefore the dieties usually incite her Nicotinian Lady- 
ship to practice many an irritating caprice; our pipes grow 
rank and our cigarettes part and disintegrate and no kind 
friends come nigh with portly cigars. 

** Sometimes these whims affect us not at all, or slightly, 
and we dream our dreams or chat in utter obliviousness to 
the guttering of ill-tempered pipes or the crumbling of 
recalcitrant * nails.* 

** But oftenest these little rifts turn our souls bitter (I 
know that figure is mixed), and amid the sour profanity 
of our grouch the Lady Nicotine can soothe us not at all. 

* * Tonight, as I said before, my mood is as social as my 
discourse is wandering, and the Lady has seen fit to make 
the day tobaccistically perfect. Tomorrow my mood may 
be merely ruminant, in which case I shall wish only to be 



28 THE ORACLE ON SMOKE 

alone with my visions, my reveries, my pipe and my to- 
bacco jar, if one can be alone w^ith such a plenitude of 
companionship; and a day or two hence the mood may 
again shift to the gregarious or at least the * spoonarious,' 
when I shall yearn to lounge at Her feet before the fire 
and with no one to dispute or share my comfort, gaze up 
at Her through the thin wreathes from my pipe. 

** These are the smoker's moods, at any rate these are 
mine, and though in my devious discursiveness tonight my 
.words seem without purpose, order or coherence; seem as 
casual as the curls of smoke about our heads, nathless I 
have spoken Truth, and if it be formless I care no jot, 
since my day has been and is one of lazy content and idle 
self-satisfaction. 

** Now my dictums are done and we will close the day 
with song. 

Smoke up! and care not for the past, its days are dead 
and done. 

Smoke up! nor heed the present for its skein is nearly 
spun. 

Smoke up ! nor fear the future, for little gain is there — 

Smoke up! with good tobacco for it smothers all our 
care." 



w 



,1905 



